Old Vault Letters and Litterst Dixon Photographs - Elaine Patton, 5/6/2013

Today I reviewed the letters Michelle worked on previously, MSS0113-b01f13-01, -b01f15-02 , and -b01f15-03. Not much for me to add (though I think I actually had to add some misspellings to the second letter!). The second and third letters are part of the correspondence between Eliza Fannin and her family (-b01f13-01 dated 2 years after -b01f15-02). Her education was obviously paying off-- such a difference in style and spelling between her letter and the one from her father!

(He charmingly refers to influenza as "influenzy" a couple of times in his letter: )

The Litterst Dixon photographs were great, though one image was mislabeled. MSS1248-2910 was supposed to have been the Preston Hotel but was instead a duplicate of MSS1248-2911.

Just for fun, another comparison photo with modern/historic Houston. As near as I can tell, this is the same area on Main Street (the red flag possibly being where the movie theaters had been in the first modern photo; where the Kirby theater had been and looking from the opposite direction in the second modern photo), 1930 vs 2011:

 

(A 1961 postcard photo is shown on this page about the theaters.)